Wow, I almost forgot: Happy Breakaway Day! Well, BD+9.
Evil commenters may diss the show all they like. I still appreciate it. And I loved it when I was 12.
If only. If only…
Image of Shuttle and Eagle from George Leonberger III, who has an amazing gallery of rendered Eagles.
If you went to BadAstronomy.com and found yourself here, never fear: the BA Blog has moved to its new home at Discover Blogs. The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking and all that) is still online, too.
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
Contact me: The Bad Astronomer "at" gmail "dot" com
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September 13th, 2008 at 9:31 am
I once saw it described as “Space 1999, marked down from 2001″.
September 13th, 2008 at 9:33 am
Heck Yeah! I wouldn’t miss an episode!
September 13th, 2008 at 9:42 am
I’ve always thought the Eagle looks like a really realistic design for a future lunar transport. I love anything created by Gerry Anderson, and his set pieces and sci fi was, (to use the cliche’), ahead of its time.
September 13th, 2008 at 9:45 am
I also loved it when I was 12.
But then I saw it again, some 15 years later…
Oh, boy! The shame!
September 13th, 2008 at 9:46 am
Hey Phil, did you make it to the actual Breakawaycon, in 1999? It was a blast! Got to meet John and Kathryn Muir, and they were very nice folks; John wrote a great book about the series. We had a brief apperance by Barbara Bain, but sadly, no Landau or Schell (no Maya for John– he was very happy to meet her in 2000 I’m sure!)
September 13th, 2008 at 9:48 am
It’s almost as if you’re deliberately trying to irritate PZ…
September 13th, 2008 at 9:59 am
Ate it up as a kid, even though I found its cosmology shakier than the original Star Trek’s. It was good, campy SF fun.
Happy Breakaway Day indeed! Hail and farewell, Moonbase Alpha!
September 13th, 2008 at 10:02 am
I loved UFO even more, and was even cheezier…
September 13th, 2008 at 10:16 am
LOL, Space 1999! That was a fun campy show! I remember it well!
September 13th, 2008 at 10:26 am
wow, strangest case of Blogging Echo. Do you watch Warren Ellis’ blog, or is this coincidence driven by another cause?
September 13th, 2008 at 10:30 am
I delight in teasing my Husband about his childhood love of Space 1999. Those costumes, that acting, those plots, those eyebrows! The 70s didntcha just LOVE ‘em? All that said it was the Mother and Father of so much GREAT SciFi. So “happy breakaway day” indeed.
September 13th, 2008 at 10:34 am
I’ve never been to a Breakaway con. But the Main Mission con in 2000 was an awful lot of fun. Catherine Schell was still every inch a lady, and meeting Johnny Byrne was tremendous. I sat with him for an hour going over the science of a show he was pitching! How cool is that?
September 13th, 2008 at 11:53 am
Saw it as a kid too. The art direction, models and sets were always top-notch to me. I liked the stories that others dislike. (Like the giant space spider in the alien-ship-scrap-yard-in-space episode.)
September 13th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
I’m proud to say that, as a kid, I hated it from the first episode. I particularly hated how slowly those mooncar things took off and landed, and the idiots dragging the moon past planet after planet, but always missing. How I longed for the moon to just smack into one. Is it too, too late to taser the writers?
September 13th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
I spoke to Johnny Byrne in 99, cool guy. He easily was the best writer on the show–too bad he got so few scripts into Season Two.
September 13th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
@UFO,
I loved UFO! I’m buying the series on DVD next week. I loved that show even better than Star Trek! I would love to know where the Anderson’s got the idea that purple wigs would be standard military issue by the 1980’s. That is one show that begs for a re-imagining.
September 13th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
When one is twelve is sometimes referred to as the definition of “The Golden Age of Science Fiction”. I guess it makes a big difference if you watched Space 1999 when you were twelve or when you were twenty nine as I was in 1975. I think I gave it about three or four episodes and then couldn’t take it any more.
George
September 13th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
I should chide and ride the BA one on how bad this show’s interpretation of science is…which far less plausible then the BA’s hated movie, Armageddon IMHO. However, since I have all 24 volumes of the manga, Bleach (which isn’t even science) and loving it for example…whom am I to judge.
More power to him.
September 13th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Wow, what memories! I used to watch UFO while I was stationed at WPAFB. It was a real hoot. None of the buildings they showed remotely resemble anything on the base. I didn’t see any grays either.
September 13th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Wasn’t “Space:1999″ the ’sequel’ to “UFO” – Moonbase One became Moonbase Alpha after an upgrade once the UFO invasion was halted.
September 13th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
@George,
Well, that might be the case. But the fact is that my father watched it with me and enjoyed the show almost as much as I did. I guess he saw the loopholes way better than I did back then, but it seems that whatever good it had (and I admit it did have some good stuff in it, all things considered) made it up for him.
I could never forget an episode with Maya where the “Alphites” find a graveyard of abandoned spaceships and end up in a battle with a terrifying monster (which, when I saw it the second time, I found very, very, poorly done). Man, that ep scared the crap out of me the first time around…
September 13th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
@Adam,
Space 1999 was originally intended to be a sequel to UFO, in it’s early development phase, but it was decided that it should be a stand alone series, and the 2 shows were totally separate entities.
September 13th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
I was a regular Space 1999 viewer, but I do recall my teenage brain, drug addled as it was, balking at the episode where an atmosphere was suddenly created on the wandering moonbase, and the denizens OPENED THE WINDOWS to let in the fresh air!! Who the hell was the contractor on that moonbase installation?
September 13th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
Pete G Says: “I’ve always thought the Eagle looks like a really realistic design for a future lunar transport. I love anything created by Gerry Anderson, and his set pieces and sci fi was, (to use the cliche’), ahead of its time.”
Those designs were all by Brian Johnson, Anderson’s chief model maker. He was so good that he was “loaned out” to Doug Trumbull’s team when they were doing 2001 (which explains the family resemblance between the moon bus and the Eagles).
As far as being ahead of his time, I just two days ago got a copy of “Journey to the Far Side of the Sun” (European title “Doppelganger”). I haven’t seen the movie since I saw it originally in the theaters in 1969. The opening sequence though, is jaw dropping in how accurately they nailed security checkpoints that would sprout up at airports. Herbert Lom plays a scientist-spy getting into a top security installation to covertly photograph some top secret documents. He has to take everything out of his pockets and put them in a tray, which is then scanned by an X-ray. He has to stand in a scanner (a fluoroscope rather than a metal detector) so that the guard can examine him for hidden contraband. Only after that, and his scanned credentials are approved, is he let in. Except for the antique look to the computer equipment, this could be a TSA training guide!
- Jack
September 13th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Loved the show as a kid (also made a eagle + moonbase for the LightWave 8.0 content
). The design of the moonbase, the eagles and generally everything is still among the coolest until today. Some designs were quite reasonable as well, I think. The eagles totally made sense (until they had them land on planets with atmosphere). I really liked the effects (for the time)and the general mood of the show (claustrophobic).
Unfortunately the story… well… I mean we all know that
September 13th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
“Evil commenters may diss the show all they like. I still appreciate it. And I loved it when I was 12.”
Right on! Keep partying like it’s 1999!
September 13th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
Ha! I actually found a 50 second clip from the episode I remembered seeing as a kid. A monster, (tentacles and a headlight,) lives in an orbiting junkyard full of (very cool) abandoned alien spacecraft. The Moonbase people visit to obtain parts. The beast apparently can transport victims into a roaring mouth before they have a chance to run away. Perhaps good for a chuckle today but when you are 10, 11 or 12, it was both cool and nightmarish.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tbXhu09m5s
September 13th, 2008 at 11:48 pm
Oh yes that junkyard monster was the stuff of nightmares for kids. It’s giant eye mesmerized you into walking right to it and then it sucked you in and spat out a mummy.
For all it’s bad it did once and a while try to do some risky things that other scifi shows wouldn’t touch.
September 14th, 2008 at 12:06 am
Actually, I thought the Eagles were one of the more realistic space ships of sci-fi up to that point!
September 14th, 2008 at 12:14 am
I LOVE the Eagles. As a child, my favorite toy was the large Mattel Eagle 1 Playset (http://www.plaidstallions.com/mattel/eagle.html).
September 14th, 2008 at 1:34 am
I think that some episodes of s:1999 still hold up quite well — while others are embarrassing drek. Definitely hot and cold, but certainly good for the time period and enjoyable today if you avoid choice episodes. In particular, the special effects were great for the mid-seventies. I certainly consider it superior to the original BSG (which suffered from far more bad TV cliches common for the time).
September 14th, 2008 at 7:27 am
Well, there are two things I still like about S:1999:
The eagles, first and foremost. I think they would work admirably well in a lunar-like environment. in particular, the modularity of the ship seems to be very well conceived.
All the departing/landing (mooning? Hm… perhaps not) sequence. I only wish they didn’t repeat it so often. Still, far better than seing the same fighter ejections over and over and over again in the original Battlestar Galactica show.
Ah, and, of course, Prof. Victor Bergman, and it’s almost unshakable rationality. So I guess there are three…
September 14th, 2008 at 10:28 am
On a technical level, Space 1999 set a new standard. The sets, the effects… all were utterly amazing. I just wish they had spent a little more time on figuring out a better premise, and spent a little more on the scripts. As it is there are really only about a half dozen of the episodes that seem to hold up: Piri, Dragon’s Domain, Mission of the Darians, Earthbound, Voyager’s Return, WarGames…
It could have been a lot better…
(But I still think Zienia Merton was the hottest babe on TV at the time.)
September 14th, 2008 at 10:39 am
The one thing I can’t figure out is why they couldn’t evacuate the Moonbase?
September 14th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
I’m one of those who absolutely hated—loathed—it from the first episode. I can’t really now recall any of the episodes, or if, in fact, I watched significant parts of any episode other than the first one.
September 14th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
I loved this show! There is nothing better than the sci-fi of one’s childhood!
September 14th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Michael, if they could evacuate the moonbase, there wouldn’t be a show. D’you want a better reason than that?
September 14th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
I never got the show but those photos are great. I wish there was one with Serenity from Firefly (a much better show). I’ve seen a few in parking lots but we could use more.
September 14th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
I could see a re-imagining done ala Battlestar (hopefully better, without becoming drawn out and surreal. Though it originally had promise, BSG devolved into “Lost” in Space–pun semi-intended.). Luna could be blasted out of Earth’s orbit via an FTL drive experiment… it worked a little TOO well and the crew of Moonbase Alpha is left stranded in a unknown part of the universe and must now wander the universe.
We’d have to rename it “Space 2099″, or something.
September 14th, 2008 at 10:48 pm
@Jorge:
I know… but still…
September 15th, 2008 at 7:58 am
Hey, I loved it when I was 12 to0. (okay, technically I was 9). That doesn’t mean it didn’t suck.
September 15th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Actually, if they really wanted to bring one of Gerry Anderson’s shows back, they should try “Into Infinity.” The photon powered spacecraft “Alteres” and it’s two family crew, taking a relativistic flight to the nearest stars, but being thorwn into another part of the universe at the end… At least that show you could suspend your disbelief a little more than you could with the entire, freaking moon being blown out of orbit!
Check it out on Youtube!
Into Infinity / Day After Tomorrow
September 17th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
For those of you who are wondering how cool Space:1999 can be. Take a look at my new website Space:2099. I am a director/video editor, and I’ve been working this past year on this project. I hope to be able to bring the original series back, but this time with a new chronology, a new pacing and new special effect where it is needed. All this while bringing moonbase alpha into a new future…2099. Take a look at http://www.space2099.tv
September 18th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
I recently bought the series on DVD. It stands up amazingly well.
September 20th, 2008 at 1:58 am
Ridiculously obsessive Space: 1999 fan here. But hey, everyone has their favorite show. Don’t judge it based on incredibly inaccurate 30+ year old memories and 50 second YouTube clips, actually watch the show. (No, not all episodes are great, and I admit to preferring Season 1 to Season 2. But it wasn’t all terrible like so many people would have one belive.)
As for Space: 2099, Eric beat me to the punch; I was going to mention his website. DO check it out, as it makes the show watchable for today’s audiences, while keeping the stories intact. (And before anyone thinks that’s not a good idea, it’s not the first sci-fi tv show to do so. Star Trek Remastered, anyone?)
Oh, regarding the ‘opening window’ on Alpha… it was installed after the moon was (temporarily) terraformed by advanced aliens. The window had been blown out during the initial atmospheric ‘installation.’ WHY does nobody ever make that observation? Anyone who knows me knows of my disdain for this point constantly being brought up, ESPECIALLY when it’s brought up to try to tear apart the series. Sheesh!