Space: 1999 - Set One (Episodes 1-6)
Ahhh, Space: 1999. I have to give the show a little bit of credit for being the first serious attempt to follow in the footsteps of Star Trek with a military-style SF series, but at the same time, the parallels are uncanny - and in some cases in unfortunate. Both series’ lead actors are capable of both sublime subtlety as well as hamming it up in the first degree. Both series featured groundbreaking set and costume designs for their respective eras. And both shows limped into their final seasons under the auspices of Fred Freiberger, who promptly treated each show to a lobotomy. It’s really kind of eerie if you think about it.
But I digress. The six episodes featured in this 2-DVD set kick things off with quite the literal bang - after a while. Breakaway has a lot of work to do to set up the show’s setting, premise and central characters - the same burden faced by any show’s premiere episode. But the problem here is that you’re almost 40 minutes into the show before any significant action occurs and you feel like the show’s finally slipping into forward gear - a momentum stalled by the obligatory cliffhanger and end credits. Martin Landau’s dour demeanor for much of the premiere is warranted, given the story, while Barbara Bain comes off as aloof and nondescript in the first hour. Roy Dotrice turns in a slightly flat performance as an adversarial space program official, and the background cast is littered with British SFTV veterans (Philip Madoc and Prentis Hancock, to name just a couple). The sets and effects are above par for what one would expect in the pre-Star Wars 70s (especially the lunar exterior sequences with their well-choreographed zero-G-on-wires effects), even if the acting isn’t.
The other episodes are sequenced in production order, which in some ways makes more sense than the jumbled original broadcast order, but sometimes they still don’t line up - the second episode, A Matter Of Life And Death, has the Moon swinging close to an Earthlike planet, while the next show, Black Sun, first shows the moon being flung into deep space by a black hole…though Earthbound (which aired 14th, and shows up on the second disc) shows the moon as being close enough to send at least one passenger home. Oh well, if you’re not already suspending your disbelief by the time the disco soundtrack music hits in A Matter Of Life And Death, the sequencing will probably be the furthest thing from your mind.
Disc two kicks off with the troubled Ring Around The Moon, an episode which may have started with an intriguing concept (an automated alien defense probe that doesn’t know its point of origin no longer exists, not unlike the premise of Babylon 5’s wacky early episode Infection), but long before we get to that revelation, we’re subjected to a tired alien possession plot. And even when presented with wonders, Koenig and crew react with…well, tedium. As much as some people complained about Captain Janeway and her crew taking their sweet time to return to the Alpha Quadrant in Star Trek: Voyager, on some subliminal level the bleaker (and, perhaps, more realistic) “I don’t want to be stuck out here seeing this” tone of Space: 1999 may convince the viewer that they don’t want to see it either. Things improve considerably with the best hour featured in this first set, Earthbound. A slightly obvious tale with a “be careful what you wish for” sting in its tail, Earthbound is a stark contrast to the episodes immediately before and after it because it brings some much-needed fire and contention to the main characters, and also wraps things up nicely for Roy Dotrice’s recurring character of Commissioner Symonds from the pilot. Well, okay, perhaps “nicely” isn’t the best way to put it…it’s a comeuppance that you can see from 40 minutes away, but you’re still glad when it gets there. And it guest stars the unlikely sight of Christopher Lee, in his post-Hammer-horror prime, decked out in groovy colorful robes and a long white wig (!). Another Time, Another Place brings things to a somewhat nondescript close with an alternate-future tale that just seems to milk weirdness for the sake of being weird.
As far as bonuses go…never mind. Most of the Space: 1999 DVDs are bereft of features - some production photos here and there, and since when are DVD credits a bonus feature? I mean, I appreciate that someone worked hard to assemble all this stuff, but seeing their names in lights…well, at the risk of offending anyone who’s in that line of work, that may be a value-added feature for them, but it doesn’t do that much for me. I guess there was just nowhere else to put that feature that made any sense. The quality of the transfer on the episodes themselves is fairly standard - no restoration work has been done on them, but the transfers are at least sharp and free of major age-related flaws.