Kevin's Watch

Gerry Anderson has been responsible for a large portion of the sci fi I enjoyed when I was a kid. Thunderbirds, UFO and of course Space: 1999. I particularly loved Space. It came on just before the Muppet Show and at the time it was a terrific one two combination. I was around 11 when Space was airing and at that time I had no problem with the physics or spatial relationships presented in the program. After many years and stumbling through a high school education, I have been forced to re examine the facts presented in the show. If the earth's moon is in fact blown out of orbit by the detonation of a stockpile of nuclear waste, is it likely that any person present on that moon would have been squashed flat like a bug? If this moon is hurtling across space away from the earth, what planets would likely be encountered across its path? The planets of our solar system were never on the list. If that is the case, how long would it take the moon to travel from Earth orbit to the next nearest star given that said moon was most likely not traveling beyond the speed of light? While enjoying a program like Space, it is a given that you have to suspend your disbelief in order to remain entertained. I have purchased a few dvds of parts of a few seasons and still enjoy the program today. The Eagles were very cool. The over all special effects were brilliant for the time period. Martin Landau and Barbara Bain were credible as the main characters. I wouldn't mind a re envisioning of Space if the Sci Fi Channel were so inclined to give it a shot.

Ahh, you forget to mention the air supply. Seemingly every episode culminated in the base losing most of its air through a series of punctures, malfunctions, collisions, moonquakes, etc. It's amazing they lasted more than 12 hours. I vote for scientifically dubious, yet strangely compelling, entertaining, and yes, groundbreaking.

dAN wrote:Ahh, you forget to mention the air supply. Seemingly every episode culminated in the base losing most of its air through a series of punctures, malfunctions, collisions, moonquakes, etc. It's amazing they lasted more than 12 hours. I vote for scientifically dubious, yet strangely compelling, entertaining, and yes, groundbreaking.

Yes of course. They lost air pressure almost as much as the Enterprise lost warp power.

As to the ground breaking, I'm sure the ground broke quite severely on Earth after the moon was sent hurtling into the cosmos like a toad from a sling shot..

clearfrontier wrote:I'm sure the ground broke quite severely on Earth after the moon was sent hurtling into the cosmos like a toad from a sling shot..

Hey, keep my personal life out of this...

dAN wrote:

clearfrontier wrote:I'm sure the ground broke quite severely on Earth after the moon was sent hurtling into the cosmos like a toad from a sling shot..

Hey, keep my personal life out of this...

I try. I really, really try. But...

While I do remember Battlestar Gallactica and rereuns of the original Trek and Lost in Space from my childhood, this show must have escaped my notice...

duchess of malfi wrote:
While I do remember Battlestar Gallactica and rereuns of the original Trek and Lost in Space from my childhood, this show must have escaped my notice...

Say it aint so Duchess. Say it aint so!

I didn't really care about the unbelievablity of it I just dug it--besides Martin Landau is a compelling actor and was so cool on Mission Impossible!

Yeah , I totally loved Space when I was a kid. The special effects were great. The Eagles were so cool and all alien spacecrafts as well. And some stories were really intense. I remember War-games, you know with the test on human character that led only to a cemetary of warships, and a story about an asteroid that crashes into the moon and releases some sort of foam that threatens the base...and everything is of course totally unbelievable. I still have quite a few on VHS...and yes Martin Landau is one of my fave actors. He is always great. Not in many films but check out Tucker by Francis Ford Coppola, Ed Wood by Tim Burton...and the first film I saw him in, North by Northwest by Alfred Hitchcock where he plays one of the villains...

kastenessen wrote:Yeah , I totally loved Space when I was a kid. The special effects were great. The Eagles were so cool and all alien spacecrafts as well. And some stories were really intense. I remember War-games, you know with the test on human character that led only to a cemetary of warships, and a story about an asteroid that crashes into the moon and releases some sort of foam that threatens the base...and everything is of course totally unbelievable. I still have quite a few on VHS...and yes Martin Landau is one of my fave actors. He is always great. Not in many films but check out Tucker by Francis Ford Coppola, Ed Wood by Tim Burton...and the first film I saw him in, North by Northwest by Alfred Hitchcock where he plays one of the villains...

War Games is one of my all time favorites!!!!! The Hawks were cool and then the bombers. Yeeeehaaawww.
I've seen all of the Landau films you mentioned. His appearance in The X-files movie was great.

Loved the X-Files movie!! That's right, he was in that one too, played an old FBI-agent didn't he, a friend of his father...

His name was Alvin Kurtzweil, M.D. He was a freind of Mulder's father indeed. Unfortunately he was offed about halfway through the film.

Cromas Tummins wrote:I try. I really, really try. But...

when I see this girl, of such a beautiful spirit, so degraded...
And when I see this boy, that I love, sprawled out by this big ape here...
And this little girl, who is so special to us that we call her God's little gift of sunshine, and I think of the number of years she's gonna have to carry in her memory the savagery of this idi-otic moment of yours...... I just go BERSERK!!

And not to be forgotten; Martin Landau and Barbara Bain of course starred in Mission: Impossible! I always thought they were married for real...but maybe they weren't...

kastenessen wrote:And not to be forgotten; Martin Landau and Barbara Bain of course starred in Mission: Impossible! I always thought they were married for real...but maybe they weren't...

I watched a bit of the old Mission Impossible. Very cool. I thought ML and BB had been married at one time. I'm not sure either.

Wasn't there a women on Space 1999 who had weird braided eyebrows and could change shapes?... Or was that Little House on the Prairie???

Brinn wrote:Wasn't there a women on Space 1999 who had weird braided eyebrows and could change shapes?... Or was that Little House on the Prairie???

There was indeed. She was a shape shifter from a world the moon couldn't possibly have reached, but there she was. She became a series regular presumably to boost ratings. Kind of like the Great Kazoo on the Flinstones

As a kid, I watched only a handful of episodes. Maybe I didn't watch it that much because, at the time, I was also watching reruns of the original Star Trek, and Trek's stories seemed more, um, comprehensible to my mind? I seem to recall being often confused by what was happening on Space: 1999.

I'm still fond of the show, however. I tuned into it because it had a sharp look--the spaceships, the uniforms, the set design. It reminded me a lot of Star Trek: The Motion Picture and 2001: A Space Odyssey. The show also had an ambiguous, even creepy tone about it that was quite different from the more straightforward feel of Trek. Martin Landau was a cool guy: I thought of his character (sorry, don't remember his name ) as a more cerebral version of Capt. Kirk.

But in the end, my loyalty went to Kirk, Spock and McCoy, not Landau and company. (Not that we were comparing the show to Trek in this thread.)

Was Space: 1999 groundbreaking? I don't know. It certainly had a distinctive style. Maybe it has the most convincing "outer space" feeling of any sci-fi series? Even today? (For example, when I look at the Enterprise in ST: TNG flying through space, the obviousness of the cheap CG effects underlines how fake the look of the show is. Gosh, what an improvement over the original Trek. )

I loved Space 1999 because it was so far-fetched. There were so many fantastic elements thinly veiled by scientific mumbo-jumbo! I especially loved the episodes that dealt with immortality, possession, evil spirits. I never took it seriously. Just plain entertaining!

I don't think it lasted more than a few seasons, though. Didn't the cast change drastically at some point? I seem to remember the shapechanging girl appearing later on in the series.

I quite liked the series, though I couldn't understand how they would be in range of a planet for several days, and still manage to reach the next one the following week.

If I remember correctly, the shapeshifting Maya (Catherine Schell?) turned up in season 2, replacing the balding science guy (Barry Morse or something like that).

There were also a number of books, at least one (I think called Breakaway) written by E. C. Tubb, who also wrote the 32 books that made up The Dumarest Saga.

Tom