# Space:1999 **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 5, 2001, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/space-1999/97051 "2001-12-05T16:34:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2001, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/space-1999/97051/21 "2001-12-06T06:17:55Z")
I wanna know how one piddling nuclear explosion that **didn’t** shatter the moon could be powerful enough not only to knock the moon completely out of Earth (and Solar!) orbit, but to send the moon all the way to other **star systems** in less than a human lifetime. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2001, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/space-1999/97051/22 "2001-12-06T10:20:03Z")
JAB 1 The DVD is uncut as far as I can tell, the dialogue you mentioned in Black Sun is on the DVD. FIVER The episode you are referring to is Earthbound with Christopher Lee. You are correct about the fate of the commissioner he goes from a character you hate to one you sympathize with. The ending still creeps me out especially when Koening reacts in horror shakes his head and simply says “there is nothing we can do” simple but effective. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2001, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/space-1999/97051/23 "2001-12-06T10:34:09Z")
FORBIN Dragon’s Domain was a great episode, my favorite part was when the Ultra Probe Ship was slowly pulling away from the space station to the music of Albinoni’s Adagio. The probe ship was scientifically correct in the sense it was mostly fuel tanks, the Bad Astronomer would be proud. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_Wright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Steve\_Wright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_Wright)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2001, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/space-1999/97051/24 "2001-12-06T11:25:36Z")
**Fiver** - no, _Space:1999_ is not a sequel to _UFO_; there are no continuing characters, and no continuity of plot lines. (I speak as one who has seen every episode of both, more than once… why, yes, I _am_ a sad case, how kind of you to notice…) I think the strength of the first season of _Space:1999_ lay in its evocation of the traditional SFnal “sense of wonder” - Moonbase Alpha was travelling through a big, strange galaxy full of things they didn’t understand. This did lead to some problems, though - the quintessential first season plot was “Moonbase Alpha encounters a mysterious alien force, against which they are totally helpless, which threatens to destroy the base completely, but lets them off at the last moment.” The science was rubbish, too - though I think it works quite well if you regard it as pure fantasy, and one episode, “The Restless Spirit”, is, IMO, an absolute classic of a ghost story. I also liked the design, very 70s though it is - all those big clean spaces with glowing walls. One of the many things the second season got wrong - besides moving to much more brainless space-adventure plots, and giving a starring role to Tony Anholt The Amazing Plastic Actor - was changing to a smaller, more cluttered, more conventionally “sci-fi” look. ---
**Author:** ![TPWombat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbce88/32.png) [@TPWombat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TPWombat)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2001, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/space-1999/97051/25 "2001-12-06T11:37:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tracer \* > \*\*I wanna know how one piddling nuclear explosion that **didn’t** shatter the moon could be powerful enough not only to knock the moon completely out of Earth (and Solar!) orbit, but to send the moon all the way to other **star systems** in less than a human lifetime. \*\* IIRC in the second episode they drifted through a Mysterious Portal that transported them elsewhere in the universe. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2001, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/space-1999/97051/26 "2001-12-06T13:27:40Z")
**Tpwombat:** Yep. Space warps/wormholes/whatevers that just happened to be in the right place at the right time to transport an object the size of the moon to another solar system. ---
**Author:** ![jinty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/dbc845/32.png) [@jinty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jinty)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2001, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/space-1999/97051/27 "2001-12-06T13:49:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Forbin \* > **I loved the show. > My favorite episode was called, “Dragon’s Domain” or something like that. > The moster would eat people, and then the digested persons remains would slide out the front onto the floor.The bones/flesh mix was always steaming, as if the digestive fluids were super caustic. > Creepy!** That’s the episode I thought of when I started reading this thread. I too was an adolescent S1999 fan, and that episode left a deep impression - a science-fiction-as-horror story that predated Alien by a few years. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2001, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/space-1999/97051/28 "2001-12-06T14:10:37Z")
I was very excited when _Space: 1999_ came out. I had been watching _Star Trek_ as a wee’un and the buzz at the time was that _Space_ was going to be far superior. So I set my little 10-year-old heinie down to watch the new series. Man, was I disappointed! But I watched it anyway, and I liked the first season. I was too young to know any better that the second season was crap, but even then I did know that the first season was better. _UFO_. This is another one I watched when I was a little kid. I remember one episode that took place on a submarine. (At least I think that was a _UFO_ episode.) And the crew wore these mesh shirts – even the women. I swear I saw nipple! ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2001, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/space-1999/97051/29 "2001-12-06T17:07:03Z")
**Space: 1999** is available on DVD & VHS and a collector’s box set of the entire series on DVD has been reported to be coming soon. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2001, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/space-1999/97051/30 "2001-12-06T18:47:17Z")
“Space 1999” was on the same level as “Lost in Space,” only without Johnathan Harris’s overacting to make it watchable. I saw it when it first aired and was bored by it very quickly. Later, I caught reruns and discovered that not only was it boring, but it was also stupid. The show could be counted on to have one gross scientific error per show. And I don’t mean something obscure you need a Ph.D to pick up. I mean the type of error that you can spot if you took any science in high school – and many where you didn’t need to study science at all (like the 10 cc contain that was the size of a two-liter bottle). Stupidest of all was the time the moon suddenly and mysteriously developed an atmosphere. The air was so nice that the opened the windows on Moonbase. Now, think about this. Alpha was built on the moon. And they included _windows that opened_ in the design. To catch the summer moon breezes, perhaps? For people who liked to keep a window open while they slept? “Here are your quarters. Be careful – that latch sometimes gives way.” Stupid. ---
**Author:** ![plasticbryan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/6a8cbe/32.png) [@plasticbryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plasticbryan)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2001, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/space-1999/97051/31 "2001-12-06T19:50:28Z")
I remember thinking that this show had to be the most incredibly boring hour on television. I have always loved Sci Fi, but I thought that this was just a bad soap opera that they said was on the moon. **Reality Chuck** I agree 100% with you! ---
**Author:** ![ScriptAnalyst](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f17d59/32.png) [@ScriptAnalyst](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ScriptAnalyst)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2001, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/space-1999/97051/32 "2001-12-06T21:58:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jab1 \* > **Icerigger: Is the DVD version the same as the original British version? Because when the series was brought to America, each episode was shortened by a couple of minutes to make room for more commercials. Some fans have said they’ve seen the originals and that some intact episodes were much less confusing, because it was usually expository dialogue that was clipped and not the “fireworks”. For example, “Black Sun” is alleged to have a scene where Koenig (Martin Landau) and Bergman (Barry Morse) are contacted by an alien intelligence while transiting through the black hole, a scene that implies that something is looking out for their welfare. The dialogue was published years ago in Starlog magazine, but it’s been a VERY long time since I’ve read it.** That piece of dialogue from BLACK SUN was not clipped when the show aired in Los Angeles. I remember it well, and I have never seen the show in the UK, nor on video or DVD. Of course, since SPACE 1999 was syndicated to different markets, it’s possible that it may have been edited in different parts of the country. By the way, outside of production values and special effects that were well above average for science fiction TV of its time, it’s hard for me to understand why this show has a fanbase. There are a handful of episodes that are tolerable (from Season One), but the show was not imaginatively written. steve biodrowski [http://www.thescriptanalyst.com](http://www.thescriptanalyst.com) ---
**Author:** ![jab1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ee7513/32.png) [@jab1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jab1)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2001, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/space-1999/97051/33 "2001-12-06T23:43:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ScriptAnalyst \* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by jab1 \* > > “Black Sun” is alleged to have a scene where Koenig (Martin Landau) and Bergman (Barry Morse) are contacted by an alien intelligence while transiting through the black hole, a scene that implies that something is looking out for their welfare. The dialogue was published years ago in Starlog magazine, but it’s been a VERY long time since I’ve read it. > > **That piece of dialogue from BLACK SUN was not clipped when the show aired in Los Angeles. I remember it well, and I have never seen the show in the UK, nor on video or DVD. Of course, since SPACE 1999 was syndicated to different markets, it’s possible that it may have been edited in different parts of the country.** That’s probably the answer, since I lived near Dallas, Texas, at the time. And **Icerigger** said it’s in the DVD. I joined the Navy in September, 1976, so I didn’t see much of Year Two, so I can’t really comment on it. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2001, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/space-1999/97051/34 "2001-12-07T00:34:17Z")
> [@](#): > > A fan base exists??? A fan base exists for every TV show ever aired.\* Blame the Internet. \*Except “Once a Hero.” Anyone wanna join? ---
**Author:** ![Etaoin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c2a13f/32.png) [@Etaoin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Etaoin)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2001, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/space-1999/97051/35 "2001-12-07T05:52:04Z")
Space 1999 is the absolute WORST excuse for a sci-fi show ever. It was made on the cheap — in Toronto, I think — and is so anti-science it makes my teeth ache. What a piece of crap. Barry Morse should be ashamed of himself. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/space-1999/97051.md?page=1)